Chapter 8
There were three very nervous suitors readying themselves to ride the three miles to Longbourn the next morning. Without Caroline Bingley there, the stay at Netherfield Park for both the Colonel and Darcy had become much more pleasant.
There was no more need for military strategy to keep them away from the termagant, nor the need to find things to do before and after visiting hours, not that any of them had actually paid attention to the proper hours of late.
The three single men staying at Netherfield Park had broken their fasts earlier than their wont and were pacing around the drawing room trying to burn off their nervous energy as they waited for an acceptable time to make a call.
Richard knew he could have gone to break his fast at Longbourn like he had many times since his parents, brother, and sister had been in residence, but today was not a normal day. Not for him, his cousin, or Bingley.
Richard Fitzwilliam was sure of Mary’s answer as they had long planned for this day.
Darcy was not sure, but he felt his entreaty would be welcomed by the lovely Elizabeth Bennet, and Bingley had no idea whether the answer he would receive would be affirmative or negative.
Even after the assurances he had received from his friends, he was still worried about his reception.
While they were waiting to leave Richard’s mind drifted back to when he first took an interest in Mary beyond that of a cousin-like family friend, he remembered the exact day.
It was on her fifteenth birthday that I noticed her more than before. We were at Longbourn to celebrate her, and the twins as well as they were to become teenagers.
From thirteen until that birthday Mary had gone through a stage.
She had found and diligently started to read that idiot Fordyce’s sermons and had begun to spew inane quotes in her conversation from his tripe.
She had worn her hair in a severe style and had worn unflattering dresses that hid her womanly assets.
Father and mother asked the Bennets why they did not correct her, and they said they knew she was intelligent enough to come to the realisation on her own without their interference. They knew what they were about!
When we arrived for that visit, I thought my eyes were deceiving me.
Mary was dressed in a very becoming day dress and her hair was not in the severe bun she had taken to wearing; she wore it down, as was appropriate for a girl not out in society.
Her green eyes were shining, and she had the same colour hair as Lizzy.
There were no more quotes from Fordyce as she allowed her innate intelligence to shine through.
When I asked her what happened, she told me that some months prior she had a long conversation with Longbourn’s rector as she was confused that no one seemed to appreciate her moralistic views.
Mr. Hastings had taken the time to explain the difference between living as a Christian and talking as one.
She had quickly understood what he was explaining to her, and just as her parents had predicted, she changed her ways on her own.
We started to talk that visit, and the more we talked the more I became fascinated with her and that is when the infatuation started.
She was too young for me to do more than talk to, but over the next two years we got closer and closer and whenever the families were together, we found we spent most of our time together.
There was never anything outside of the bounds of propriety, we talked, debated, and argued, but never with acrimony.
By the time that she turned seventeen, she was a beauty that matched her older sisters, inside and out.
The Bennets were visiting Snowhaven, it was the year William and Georgie were at the Darcy estate in Scotland.
Bennet called me in and asked my intentions as he could not help but observe my marked attention to Mary.
By then I knew she was not indifferent to me and that my infatuation was now full-blown and deep love.
I informed him that I intended to ask for a courtship when she came out.
Bennet told me he would be happy to entertain that request from me, but he wanted me to wait until she was nineteen, a year after her entry into society.
I agreed, of course, she was worth the wait.
Not long after her come out I admitted my feelings to her; my relief was immense when she told me that she returned them in full measure. Now I am less than an hour away from making the request I have wanted to make for over two years.
Richard was snapped out of his reverie by Bingley’s nervous pacing.
Bingley was much relieved after reviewing his doubts with his two friends the previous evening when they had returned home, but still not sure.
The Colonel, who had known the Bennets for many years, assured Bingley the only thing that would be important to them was the content of his character, and whether Jane loved him and he her.
Darcy agreed with his cousin, adding that everything he had observed about the Bennets agreed with Richard’s conclusion.
He reminded Bingley what they had heard Mrs. Bennet say to her girls that one day not long after they had made their acquaintance about only marrying for the deepest love.
Bingley had felt much better after the discussion, the result of the relief meant he was one of now three getting ready for a mad dash to Longbourn.
The Hursts smiled knowingly at them as they observed the three anxiously watching the clock, paying attention to little else other than not walking into one another or any furniture as they roamed about the sitting room.
At the first chime indicating it was at last nine o’clock in the morning, they took their leave with barely a word, and they sprang on their waiting horses.
Richard had requested the mounts be made ready as soon as he had descended the stairs that morning.
The three men eagerly galloped off in the direction of Longbourn.
Richard had waited years to claim his Mary but this ride, to him, seemed like the longest trial though in fact none of them had ever ridden to Longbourn so fast.
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All three handed their coats and hats to Bennet’s butler, then were shown in and announced to the group sitting in the blue drawing room where bows and curtsies were made.
“Welcome gentlemen,” Bennet smirked as he looked at their faces brightened by the exercise.
He had watched them galloping and then slow as they reached the gate and had little doubt what the morning would bring.
He had determined it was best to make them squirm a little as he had for his Fanny, otherwise one might miss the opportunity to so keenly appreciate a positive response.
“You have arrived as we are being entertained with the most ridiculous letter I have ever read.” He offered the three young men who had practically taken residence in his house leave to sit, amused they were waiting for the offer when of late they had acted as family because his Fanny had given them leeway to do so since the Fitzwilliams were, in fact, in residence.
Bennet provided some background to the amusement of the listeners, explaining that prior to the birth of his sons, Tom and James, the estate had been entailed to a very narrow-minded, illiterate, and otherwise uneducated, miserly cousin, a Mr. Ned Collins.
The cousin had felt it a personal affront Fanny had dared to produce not one, but two sons, and had in jealousy and disgust severed all contact while apoplectic over the usurping of what he deemed his God given right to inherit Longbourn.
Bennet also explained the man had unsuccessfully tried to stop the breaking of the entail in front of a judge.
This same cousin had since passed away and now his son, who had taken orders and was the rector at Hunsford, which was the living gifted by Rosings Park, had written a letter inviting himself to come visit.
In Collins’s expressed words, he wanted to heal the breach and offer an olive branch, as instructed by his much-exalted patroness, none other than the great Lady Catherine de Bourgh.
As soon as William and Richard heard this, they knew this vicar would be as obsequious and sycophantic as all the others Lady Catherine appointed, never mind it was no longer her gift to appoint.
The more of a sycophant the appointee was, the more she preferred it.
She was the kind of person that needed her ego puffed up by senseless and unwarranted grovelling.
The Fitzwilliams in residence had already apprised Bennet of the type of man that the rector would be. From what Bennet described of Collins’s letter, this inhabitant of Hunsford was the worst specimen yet, and that was really saying something.
Not only had he invited himself with no prior acquaintance or introduction, but he was a mixture of servile, praising, pomposity, and pandering obsequiousness rolled into one.
Even worse, it was determined from his writing that he was no smarter than, as he called him, his dear honourable departed father.
Based on the manner in which he went on about Lady Catherine and her condescension to him, one could rightly be confused whether he worshiped the Lord on High or Lady Catherine or both.
Due to his lack of attention, or his inherent inability to handle details, the letter had been misdirected and he was due to arrive on the morrow at four o’clock.
Bennet decided not to send his express rider to Hunsford to deliver a response telling him that he was not welcome because he was certain the parson would ignore the express and come anyway.